


Special Delivery

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brock plays both sides, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Darcy likes buying presents, F/F, F/M, Multi, Natasha is a sneaky sneak who spoils her surprises, Presents, Sneakiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Dating one super spy that likes to tear through the house and hunt down their Christmas presents is bad enough. Dating two of them is level of Just Not Fair that Darcy never thought she'd have to deal with, but this Christmas is going to be different. For the first time Darcy is pretty sure she's got a plan that cannot fail.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Brock Rumlow, Darcy Lewis/Natasha Romanov, Darcy Lewis/Natasha Romanov/Brock Rumlow, Natasha Romanov/Brock Rumlow, heavily implied additional foursome
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91
Collections: Darcyverse Secret Santa





	Special Delivery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VisiblePetrichor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VisiblePetrichor/gifts).



Dating a super spy could make the holidays difficult. Dating two of them was a downright trial. It wasn’t the possibility of last minute crises, their tendency toward unexpected night terrors, or the fact that both of them had scared the bejesus out of her on more than one occasion with their completely silent insomniac nighttime wanderings. There was no terror quite like the terror of turning a corner in your on-base apartment lit by nothing but the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree and nearly colliding with a former S.H.I.E.L.D. spec ops agent that could kill you with their pinky—especially when you could have sworn that you left them all snugged up in bed. But no, the problem wasn’t any of those things. The problem, instead, was an ongoing battle that had persisted from the very beginning of their romantic entanglement.

Darcy’s first Christmas with Natasha came just after she and Jane had accepted S.H.I.E.L.D.’s offer of lab space, funding, and benefits. They’d moved to a townhouse in Washington D.C. It was almost dead center in a quaint set of rowhouses with a brick walking street just a few steps from the front door. Most of the homes were faced with some manner of standard brick, but whoever had been the previous owner of theirs had painted the facade a cheery mint green. The shutters and doors were a warm chocolate brown. The whole place put Darcy in mind of a mint chocolate truffle turned inside out.

Everything about their new home was perfect. The second floor had one bedroom with a sliding door that accessed the tiered back patio that Darcy claimed with zero regret, a second bedroom with no windows in the middle of the house that was perfect for Jane’s erratic sleep schedule, and an office overlooking the walking street where the scientist could work whenever she had a burst of inspiration in the middle of the night. For the first time in years Darcy had regular access to a full sized kitchen. The possibilities for Christmas baking were so great she started planning from the moment they moved in. Being involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. meant they were perfectly located to deliver a multitude of treats to the masses of agents and administrative workers. 

“You’re like something out of a holiday movie,” Natasha teased her from her perch on one of the stools at the kitchen island. Nearly every inch of countertop space was covered in cookie-related paraphernalia. A growing tower of cooling racks was rising in the corner beside the fridge, dozens of gingerbread and sugar confections on their surfaces.

“How do you figure?” Darcy asked, juggling another pair of cookie sheets out of the oven. She set them atop the stove while she deposited two more full trays into the oven’s warmth.

“I’ve never seen something like this outside of film,” Nat admitted, waving a hand in Darcy’s direction. “The baking and kitschy sweaters. You’re like a perfect model of Christmas cheer.”

“If you say so, babe.” Darcy laughed. She waved an empty tray over the most recent batch of cookies for a few moments before pausing long enough to creep around the island and deliver a sweet kiss to Natasha’s lips. “If you think this is cheerful just wait until it’s present time.”

For Darcy gift-giving was The Number One Thing on her list of holiday loves. She liked to spoil the people in her life. Her mother used to take her out to shop for all their relatives, and Mama Lewis insisted that the best part of the present-giving tradition was finding the right thing to make all your loved ones smile. They made a game of it, careful to put extra love and thought into every selection. Which meant, of course, that Darcy was an excellent shopper. She had love in abundance.

With her mind on the gifts for Natasha she had already hidden in the top of her bedroom closet Darcy returned to the cooling cookies. She carried the trays over and transferred the cookies one at a time to a fresh pair of cooling racks stacked atop the others, humming a carol as she moved. With her back to the island, she never noticed Natasha leave the room. It wasn’t until she turned around to take the empty cookie sheets to the sink and found the redhead standing right beside her that she even realized the other woman had moved at all. 

“I love them,” Nat assured her, a twinkle in her eyes. “And you need better hiding places.”

Darcy gaped at her, struggling to process her girlfriend’s words for a moment. “You sneak!” she hissed when they sank in. “You’re not supposed to go hunting for your presents!”

Natasha just grinned. “But isn’t trying to find them a time honored tradition?”

And that was the moment Darcy knew she was in trouble. 

So it went for several years. No matter how hard she tried, Darcy just couldn’t keep the presents a surprise. Nat was too much of a handful. It was fun, in a way, to try finding a hiding place that the Russian woman wouldn’t eventually uncover, but she was never successful. Stark invited Jane into his growing Avengers project when S.H.I.E.L.D fell, and they relocated to upstate New York when the new Avengers facility was built. Darcy took to asking the other Avengers to help her on her quest. The closest she got was the year Clint agreed to give her a hand, but the moment Nat knew the archer was lending his assistance she was in the facility’s vents and had no trouble locating her presents.

When the both of them hit it off with Brock Rumlow—a long story involving undercover work for Nick Fury—and subsequently shifted their relationship from casual to something a bit more involved Darcy thought she might finally have an ally. Rumlow had led STRIKE Alpha, and he’d worked with Natasha for years. They didn’t have the kind of history that she had with Clint, so he might be able to be unpredictable with present hiding locations. She started plotting early, and the next opportunity she found to enlist him for her side of the bitter struggle she jumped on with manic enthusiasm.

“You gotta help me,” she pleaded over her first peppermint mocha of the season. They were sitting in a sweet little coffee house in a small town about thirty minutes from the Avengers facility. Coffee was the one thing Darcy and Brock loved that Nat just didn’t share their enthusiasm for, so one of their spontaneous cafe dates was the perfect cover for this discussion.

Brock raised an eye over his americano, making his scars pucker a bit. “Do I now?”

“Yes,” Darcy insisted, “with a mission of the utmost importance.”

“You know, princess, mission briefings usually have a bit more information than that,” he teased, stretching a leg out beneath the table to nudge her foot with his own.

“It’s about Natasha.”

His eyes narrowed. “I thought we said we were gonna do this whole thing with open honesty. No going behind each other’s backs.”

“Oh, no, nothing like that.” She waved her hands and shook her head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with sex or relationship stuff. This is about the Present War.” At his next raised eyebrow she continued. “It’s a battle for the ages. Me with all my glorious holiday enthusiasm versus her with her film noir worthy snooping skills. It’s been going for years, and you’re going to help me win for a change.”

“That’s going to depend on what the stakes are.” He flagged down one of the shop’s waitresses to go ahead and ask for a second round of drinks for the both of them, then tacked on an order for a double chocolate chip muffin she’d been eyeing in the case. Brock did things like that. He never ate sweets himself, but he always seemed to notice when she or Natasha found something tasty that caught their eye. “Start talking, love. Don’t skip out on the details.”

“She’s a menace to do gifts for. Not the shopping, but the hiding. I am at my wit’s end for hiding presents from her. She always finds them before Christmas.” She sighed and scooped a dollop of whipped cream covered in crushed peppermint from the top of her drink with her pinky finger. “Our first Christmas she snuck out and found her presents while I was baking cookies. The next year I labelled everybody’s presents with the wrong name and she still figured out what cypher I was using and tracked down her own. It’s madness, I tell you.”

Over the next hour she told him all the stories of past Christmases. From that first holiday in D.C. through all the other wild shenanigans that resulted in the Black Widow knowing exactly what was waiting for her under the tree. Brock listened intently, absorbing the stories with all the intense focus of a soldier listening to his next assignment. When she finished he took her hand over the table and very seriously promised to help her in any way that he could. 

And then the dirty rat teamed up with Natasha to uncover both of their presents.

She found them sitting on crates down in an archival storage room Maria Hill assured her Brock would never visit. They were re-wrapping the custom utility belt she’d had made for Brock, already arguing over what items were essential for him to carry in it. Darcy stood in the doorway with her hands planted firmly on her hips, unable to do anything more than shake her head in disgust.

“Unbelievable,” she huffed. They both looked up at her with sheepish grins. She jabbed an accusing finger at Brock. “You, sir, are a traitor.”

Natasha unwound her legs from their crossed position to stretch across the crate and drape them over Brock’s thighs. “You can’t blame him, darling. You’re just so sweet with your choices we can’t wait for the surprise.”

“You know what they say…” Brock trailed, beckoning for Darcy to join them for a cuddle.

“No,” Darcy insisted, milking the moment for a brief pout just to spite them. “What do they say?”

He grinned. “All’s fair in love and war.”

After three Christmases with Natasha and a further two with both Natasha and Brock ganging up on her, Darcy finally developed the perfect solution. Honestly, she was a little peeved with herself that she didn’t think of it sooner, especially given how she’d come into contact with superheroes in the first place. It took an innocent question from Wanda during one of their monthly girls’ nights for the lightbulb to go off in her mind. Once it did, though, she felt just as evil as the Grinch.

By December 1st, Nat and Brock were tearing through the compound in every spare moment. They searched every nook and cranny for wrapped bits and bobs. They checked in vehicles, took turns trawling the ventilation shafts, and even removed and replaced the drywall in several storage closets just in case they’d missed some construction. One of them—Darcy wasn’t going to ask which of them mostly because she didn’t want a target to be angry at for the privacy violation—planted a tracker in the big purse they knew she carried on her shopping excursions. She got Wanda to help her transfer it to a pigeon in New York City that led them on a merry chase through the Bronx before they figured out what had happened. There were no more trackers after that. Lesson learned.

When they’d still had no luck by December 10th they started to branch out. Brock took one of the quinjets on a ‘joyride’ that let him search the Stark Industries facility on the west coast. Natasha found her way to all the observatories Jane had visited over the last year just in case Darcy had stashed items on location. At Clint’s urging (troll that he was) both of them flexed their undercover skills. Natasha became a bubbly blonde co-ed to talk her way into Jane’s mother’s London flat, sure that Darcy might have enlisted the older Foster’s aide. Brock took on the task of infiltrating the home of Darcy’s mother way out in Wisconsin. Mama Lewis was so impressed with Brock’s mute handyman disguise that she didn’t bother telling him she could recognize him on sight until she offered to let him stay for dinner.

“You can’t have decided not to give us anything,” Natasha insisted over dinner on December 20th. “You can barely go a week without an ‘I saw this and thought of you’ present.”

Brock topped off all three of their wine glasses, starting with Darcy’s first. He gave her a calculating look. “She could have gotten us non-physical gifts. Vacation packages or something.”

“No,” Natasha disagreed, shaking her head. “Even if she got us something like that she’d still make sure we have more than a card to open. She likes the unwrapping and the opening almost as much as the shopping.”

With a sip of her wine, Darcy gave them nothing more than a smile. “Guess you two will just have to wait for Christmas for a change.”

By Christmas Eve they were practically frantic. 

At four o’clock in the morning, Darcy pried Brock’s arm from around her waist, crawled over Natasha’s prone form, and crept out of bed. She knew before she hit the bedroom door that they were both awake and would be following her every step. She wiggled her way into a pair of candy cane print leggings, dragged one of Brock’s fleece pullovers over her head, and jammed her feet into her fur-lined snow boots. After a quick stop in the kitchen for a new aerosol sprayer of edible gold paint she wrapped herself in one of the flannel blankets from the couch and set out for the nearest facility exit. Their apartment was on the facility’s top floor, but Natasha and Brock had both insisted they be the closest one to the stairwell. Escape routes were apparently very important. She started to talk as she descended the stairs, sure they were close enough to listen even though she hadn’t heard any indication to support the theory.

“I’m actually a little surprised you two didn’t figure this out,” she mused conversationally. “I was actually a little made at myself for taking so long to come up with it because now it just seems obvious.”

“It can’t have been that obvious.”

She paused on a step at the sound of Brock’s voice and leaned out to peer over the railing. He was standing at the bottom of the steps half hidden in shadow. It was hard to tell in the nighttime security lighting, but she was pretty sure the tiny flashes of silver glinting on his chest were the metal accents of a climbing harness. Extra to a fault, he’d probably gone out the bedroom window. She hoped he’d closed it behind him. 

“We tried all the obvious things.” It was only years of conditioning that kept Darcy from jumping at the sound of Natasha’s voice right beside her. “I put Clint through interrogation paces and got nothing. We know you didn’t have help.”

“Of course I had help,” Darcy insisted, continuing her journey down the stairs. On the last couple of steps she started to shake the can of gold paint. “I just stopped asking for help from people just like you guys.”

Brock held the exterior door open for her, watching her with narrowed eyes while she tromped purposefully through the snow to a big open patch of field. She stopped just on the edge of the flattest spot and sprayed a line in the snow with the edible gold. She pointed at it, turning to give both of them a stern look.

“Stay behind the line, trouble makers.” Order given, she stepped out into the field and started spraying more of the edible gold. “Thor is always up for a bit of mischief, you know. It’s why he loves Loki so much even though he’s a half-evil little shit. So it didn’t take more than the promise of some extra snickerdoodles to get him to help me out.” 

There was a telling silence behind her. Neither of them had considered going to Thor. He was such a lovable labradoodle that people forgot he was wicked smart. 

“He’s like the one Avenger you guys don’t try to track,” she continued, shuffling sideways through the snow while she bent to color the white powder cold. “You can’t get a tracker on him, and he hasn’t carried a phone since he broke that fifteenth one Tony gave him. So, he and Mew-Mew flew out to meet me whenever I went shopping. He was my carrier pigeon to get your stuff out of the way.”

She finished her design in the snow and stepped back to the first line she’d drawn. A massive gold X sparkled in the moonlight on top of the snow. She tucked the mostly empty can of gold spray into one of Brock’s pockets and wound an arm around each of their waists, pulling them tight against her sides.

“It’s definitely a frivolous use of power, but what’s the point of being able to use nepotism with Asgardian royalty if you don’t take advantage of it every now and again?” She leaned up to peck an affectionate kiss on each of their cheeks in turn, then tilted her head back and directed her next words at the sky. “Alright, Heimdall! Let her rip!”

The sky burst apart with a wide column of rainbow light as the Bifrost pelted down against the ground. It was perfectly centered on the golden X. While they watched a figure took shape. The rainbow light vanished as suddenly as it had appeared and Darcy couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows at the sight of Heimdall in all his golden armored glory with a big red sack over one shoulder and a jaunty fur-trimmed hat on his head in place of the usual horned helmet. The costume hadn’t been part of her request.

“I have watched over Midgard for thousands of years,” the Asgardian said by way of explanation, gold eyes twinkling. “I thought the theatricality fitting.”

“You win,” Natasha conceded, her hand squeezing at Darcy’s hip. “This was genius.”

Brock leaned down close, nuzzling against the shell of Darcy’s ear in a way that he knew would send a jolt of want zinging through her stomach. “Do we get to keep Santa, too?” he asked in a sultry whisper that was definitely not meant to actually be for her ears only.

“I was wondering the same thing,” Natasha added in a similar faux-hushed voice.

In the middle of the scar left by the Bifrost, his gaze fixed on the three of them and growing more heated by the moment, Heimdall smiled.

“Hadn’t planned on it, but I definitely wouldn’t complain,” Darcy admitted with a laugh. Unexpected additional present and perhaps a permanent ally for present war—she could live with that. If they were tired enough Brock and Nat might even wait until after breakfast to find out what was in their presents. “Merry Christmas to all! Let’s go get naked.”


End file.
